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he paid too much for the green day tickets, but it was worth it. now they’re tucked inside the gift-wrapped book of gary larson cartoons.
it took him a week of horse-trading to convince his ex to let james spend his birthday away from her.
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charlotte woke up crying. her father sits at the end of the couch.
his voice is soft, his breath is sweet. the party is quieting down, but there are still adults talking downstairs.
charlotte is seven. she dreamt that the house was on fire.
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across the street. the luchesi’s. they all have different first names. except for one of them.
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cheever street, late afternoon. a muffled roar pulses from a garage near the end of the block. from outside the clamor is hard to recognize, but the roar demands attention. more than one neighbor watches their clock for the agreed upon curfew of six pm to arrive, when they [...]
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james lives on fenton street down the block from the empty lot that once held the 7-11. a firehouse is going up slowly.
he’s a teenager, but you’d only know it from the library books in his backpack: salinger, the autobiography of malcolm x, arthur c clarke. his looks would [...]
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darkness attracts light.
the contrast can be thrilling.
but it’s always and forever darkness.
and over time, the light gets tired of doing all the work.
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a couple sits on opposite sides of a dinner table, food mostly gone. muted explosions and a pumping sountrack come up through the floor. no one speaks.
they’ve been together for many years, each shaped by lifelong contact with the other, a complex jigsaw of additions and subtractions. there are crack in hidden places, [...]
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twilight, late summer.
an almost sixth grader living in a small house out past dearborn.
he’s put his fidgets to bed, now he opens his mind.
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a beginning.
the spark before the flame. the inhale before the exhale. a moment’s peace, balanced on the edge of the unknown, and then tumbling forward, falling, plummeting down, eyes tight closed but catching glimpses all the same, flashes of recognition, but they’re gone too fast, like a torch thrown [...]
